There is a lot to be said for buying an old house, for all its disadvantages in comfort, if it has a well-established garden. Even if the couple do not have green fingers themselves, they will soon learn from the expertise of those who have gone before them and left a heritage, especially of fruit trees.
One couple fell on their feet when they were able to buy a house with nearly an acre of garden - this was at the edge of the city, and had been occupied before by the builder. The house itself was just all right, but in the garden there were no fewer than 30-odd established apple trees of many varieties (this was some decades ago), four or five large plum trees and a couple of damson. The strawberries were indifferent but the previous owner had evidently a liking for loganberries. They were abundant. Then a few blackcurrant and gooseberry bushes. The outbuildings were tempting: the mistress indulged in a large flock of hens, but soon reduced the number when she found what work was involved. A goat came and went quickly after it butted the mistress. To top all for the master, there was a fine rowan tree. He had spent many years in the mountains of Wicklow and would suck and spit out the berries with great relish as he told tales of other days.
There was, too, a greenhouse for tomatoes, and junior hands were sent out into the fields to collect cowpats for fertiliser. How were the buyers so lucky? It was at the end of the Civil War, and the previous owner may have had reasons for leaving the district.
Another house bought by young people known to the writer had not only an attractive and historical ambience about it, but had in its garden, on the rear wall of the barn, an ancient pear tree, beautifully espaliered and annually presenting the family with rows of vast succulent pears of a species the name of which is lost to memory. There was also a huge planting of both amber and red raspberries. A third old house had a cold greenhouse containing a white peach tree which annually gave the owners more than 12 dozen large fruit, juicepacked. There also pears and apples in the garden. The inside of an old house may be all brown-painted, its water system and fireplaces not up to late 20thcentury standards, but your children will carry throughout life, golden memories of trees and fruit and birds' nests and a story-book bliss that they would wish on their own children.
Y.